All of the following images are copyrighted to Brian Long at LONG PRODUCTIONS & CISCO SYSTEMS. They are here for display purposes only, please do not copy them unless you ask for permission.

There aren’t that many of these, so here goes...

Well, I was quite nervous when I came home with the new scooter on Friday, although I was starting to get the hang of it towards the end. Its really simple really, and is very sturdy and stable. On Sunday I took it out for a practice ride twice round the block, and took the time to get used to the controls, braking, signaling, and accelerating. I’m feeling much happier now, and I quite enjoyed myself. Tuesday will be my first official trip to work and back, and I am both looking forward to the experience and slightly nervous. I’m also going to have to leave the poor scooter out in the cold outside the office. I hope I don’t get soaked, lets hope for a good day.

Anyway, when I returned from my practice drive, Fiona got the camera out, and she tool a few pictures, and filmed a short sequence. Little Joshua was awake at the time so he got in on the shoot also

The boys have recently started interacting with stuff much more, both of them really enjoy playing with the piano, and the dangling toys of their baby gym. Joshua especially likes banging on all the buttons of the piano to change all the tunes before they’ve even started playing properly, its all intense and serious. Must be just a button thing, I can’t think who he takes after in this respect...

A video will follow shortly...

Joshua studies the various button options.



Connor gets to know the parrot.



Chewing the toys is part of the fun:



I can command the world from here:

Simba was just determined at the weekend that she was going to get a cuddle with Fiona also.

Well! I’ve had to bite the bullet, this countries public transport is a shambles. Fiona is completely excluded from buses with the twins because she won’t be able to fold down the buggy with the boys. Here’s Lothian buses official line. If I use public transport Fiona and the boys need to drive me to Wallyford at 7:45 in the morning not an easy task, or I have to leave the house at 7:40, catch the 8:04 bus to Edinburgh, then catch one of the LRT buses down Leith walk. This might sound fine in theory, except:

o 10 - 15 min walk to Bus stop, fine in the good weather
o On average the “First” bus from Tranent is 5-15mins late. I would’nt be impressed if it was chucking it down.
o Gets in with delay plus on average a 5 to 10 min traffic delay.
o Walk down Leith walk which is a 25min walk, or wait 5-10 mins for LRT bus, and takes 15 mins to work.
o Get into work 9:15, when ideally I would be in just before 9:00.

Since both buses are different companies, and the UK has no concept of integrated transport. It cost my 2.50 return from Tranent, then 2x1.10 singles from Edinburgh to Leith.

You can imagine I was starting to lose it quickly!!!

So what’s the alternative, well we’ve got we very little spare cash, and we’re worried about the environment, the sensible option appeared to be a Scooter. The Yamaha Giggle was our choice. There’s just no way cost wise or environmental wise we could justify a second car. Its a slighty daunting thought but after holding on with white nuckles for the first 10 mins of the journey home yesterday, I actually started to enjoy myself trundling along at 20mph (Yes its limited to 30mph, and 20 seemed fast enough )

The Yamaha Giggle, does 140mpg, with a 1 gallon tank. It will allow my 7 roundtrips to work and back from Tranent before I spend another fiver on fuel.

More too follow...

The boys execising on their activity mat (Photography Copyright 2008, Naomi Lynch).




Connor Kenneth Docherty



Joshua James Docherty

Saturday past we all made it down for our first night in the caravan. Here are a few shots:



Suddenly the caravan looks like a nursary.



Getting on with essential baby business, Joshua gets a change, and Connor has a stretch.



Buggy Garage up and operational and Connor takes a nap. More to follow...

The boys having fun on the new playmat they just received from their great grandfather James, and their uncle John.

I’ve recently started planning and designing the low voltage renewable power system for the new house. It will be a little while before I really get a chance to implement the design, with boys taking up most of our spare time, and it will take a little while to settle into the new house. However, I’ve already started making requirements, and I’ve hunted out some components. Some of the initial designs are now in my notebook.

The majority of the system will be controlled by a nice all-in-one control panel, which is designed for a top spec motor home. However I also need an additional Main bus control panel to remotely control the main battery disconnect, and monitor the status of the Main bus. The Main bus will form the heavy current backbone of the system (initially spec’d for bursts of100A), and will provide power to the main panel as well as directly supplying heavy loads such as inverters, heavy pumps or motors. The Main bus should be able to cope with bursts of current up to 100A at 12V from a sudden ~1KW load.

A few of my requirements for the Main bus control panel included:

• A master switch which will remotely connect and disconnect the Battery bus from the Main bus, this will basically switch off everything
• An instant visual indication of the current state of the Main bus (Red light for Main bus power failure)
• A indication that basic verification of Main bus had been confirmed (Green light for system verified)
• A plunger push button to start the Main bus connect, and start Main bus supply verification
• A warning alarm system to alert us of a sudden power failure or a failure with Main bus verification (flashing Amber light with buzzer)
• A parallel switch, for paralleling any auxiliary batteries with the battery bus
• A timer module, which will provide a delay for Main bus verification. This is required to prevent the startup loads causing triggerging a low voltage battery or overcurrent disconnect.

One of my favorite websites for low voltage supplies is www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk. On this site I came across the following switch panel:



This fits my needs nicely, and I really do like the big red switch

My initial wiring diagram is included. This may require further tweaking, and I suspect there are a few simplifications possible, but I’ll need to look into these further:



Basic Operation

• Main bus is disconnected from the live Battery bus, the red switch above is down, and no lights are displayed. Everything is disconnected except those on the Hot Battery bus.
• The user lifts the main switch cover up, and lifts the main switch up. Main bus control panel is now live. The RED light will indicate that system Main bus is disconnected.
• The user starts the Main bus connect and verification system by pressing that START switch, at this point the RED light will extinguish, and the the Main bus becomes live.
• During the verification time all connected items will be powered allowing the initial burst of power to stabilize on the Main bus.
• After a 3 seconds the Main bus verification system becomes enabled. If it fails, the RED light will come on and the Alarm will start (flashing Amber light on top with buzzer). If the verification system passes testing, the GREEN light will illuminate to indicate that all systems are running normally.
• If at any time the verification system detects a problem, or the Main bus loses power, the RED light will come on and the Alarm will start.
• The Main bus can be switched off, including verification alarm system by switching off the main switch and by moving its red cover down.
• The parallel switch connects the Hot Battery bus to the auxiliary Hot Battery bus.
• I may add an optional yellow light at some point to provide a visual indication of the 3 second delay between Main bus connect and Main bus verification. Alternatively I may just illuminate both RED and GREEN light together for a short period of time.

Connor Kenneth Docherty (nearly 4 weeks old) and his Great Grandfather James Durnian (83 years old) meet for the first time.

Well in this case one fortunately. My brother and sister in law kindly gave us this cool little mobile a few months before the twins came along. Since we’ve had it, it has played plenty of music, but no turning. Well, I felt I couldn’t be beaten by something so simple! Then I opened it up, and about 4 parts sprung out in all directions, oops! Anyway, the mobile connector rod appeared to have separated from its friction clutch (presumable a safety feature in case it gets jammed). It was simply a case of reattaching it. The real problem is growing a third hand to help put everything back together again. Anyway, with a bit of wrangling we have the wee cute mobile working again for a second life, with plenty of tune, and some movement again. Don’t you love happy endings :-

The new house has come along a lot since we last visited the site. It is exciting seeing it again, although we are very down that our own house hasn’t sold yet. It looks good with fencing and slabbing finished at the front and back, and the garage also has its rear door. Here’s the South side of the house, with gate to drive way and double garage:



Here are two views of the garden, the sitting room is flat to the garden (no step). Not a huge area, but it is mostly south facing. The long section to the side of the garage should get sunshine from morning to mid afternoon (South by South East), and hopefully we’ll have room for some bushes, a greenhouse, a compost heap, and maybe the external water storage tanks for the rainwater harvesting system. The area between the house and the garage will either be a patio or decked area with some greenery, with lights and maybe a water feature. Maybe we’ll get a bit of grass in somewhere. Access to the garage is provided at the rear by a windowed door:



The front of the house with a slabbed path. To the left is a field , and in front is a large pond (out of picture). The space between the houses is a shared slabbed path that allows access to the gardens at the rear. Great for allowing room to get the buggy to the rear:

A cute black & white photo of Connor & Joshua on their second morning in the big world.

There are four engineers traveling in a car; a mechanical engineer, a chemical, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer.The car breaks down."Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We'll have to strip down the engine before we can get the car working again", says the mechanical engineer. "Well", says the chemical engineer, "it sounded to me as if the fuel might be contaminated. I think we should clear out the fuel system. "I thought it might be an grounding problem", says the electrical engineer, "or maybe a faulty plug lead." They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and say: "Well, what do you think?" "Ummm - how about if we all get out of the car and get back in again?"

As many of you are aware, I am very interested in Eco Gadgets, and I have a few around the kitchen, some of which will be covered in a future posting. However, I was sitting down the other day reading the latest addition of “Clean Slate” the quarterly magazine from the Centre For Alternative Technology when I came across an article about our old friend the Pressure Cooker. My mother had one for years, and we’ve had one since the wedding, but we’ve only occasionally used it for soups and the like. Anyway, designed in 1679 by Denis Papin, it truly is one of the best Eco Gadgets you can have in your kitchen. Since the cooking inside occurs at 125oC at a pressure of 100KPa or 15psi, everything cooks significantly faster. I was also under the impression that everything had to be submerged in water, this is not the case, as little as 300ml of water (barely covering the bottom) can be used to steam pressure cook potatoes and carrots in as little as 4 minutes. Because the energy in the steam is only be lost through the valve and metal chest, most of the energy is being maintained in the chamber, meaning that once pressurized the gas can be dropped down. C.A.T quotes that on average cooking time is reduced by 70%. All the recent versions, of which ours is one, have various safety features, and tools to make cooking easy. For the outset of £50, it could be just the thing. Most come with instructions from cooking Veg, soups, casseroles, and just about anything... Worth checking out! By the way the picture below illustrates last nights cooking of potatoes and carrots, and just like it says on the tin, it took 4 minutes to cook under pressure, and about a minute and a half to achieve pressure. I’m impressed, you can bet my pressure cooker will see more use..... Oh and there’s something exciting about steam under pressure......